[StBernard] Foti tries to keep gov. from testifying about nursing home deaths

[Westley Annis]

Foti tries to keep gov. from testifying about nursing home deaths

The Associated Press
 
 
NEW ORLEANS The governor had nothing to do with the drownings of 35 nursing
home residents after Hurricane Katrina, and shouldn't testify in the owners'
trial, the attorney general's office says.

Sal and Mabel Mangano are charged with negligent homicide; jury selection
for their trial will start Monday in St. Francisville, where the trial was
moved because of extensive news coverage about the case in the New Orleans
area.

State District Judge Jerome Winsberg has ruled that defense attorneys, who
contend that the government is responsible because it bungled evacuations
and failed to make sure levees would stand, may question Gov. Kathleen
Blanco about her response to the storm.

But he is expected to rule Monday on whether state attorneys, who were
supposed to submit new arguments by Aug. 3 against such testimony, may get
extra time to do so.

They filed their motion Thursday, six days after the deadline which Winsberg
had set Aug. 1. saying they missed the deadline "due to the complex legal
issues involved and the different state agencies affected."

They should have asked for more time before the deadline, defense attorney
John Reed wrote in his response. "We are not talking about missing a
deadline by a few minutes, a few hours or even a day. We are now close to a
week," he wrote.

Attorney General Charles Foti's office is both representing Blanco and
prosecuting the case because St. Bernard Parish District Attorney Jack
Rowley recused himself, saying he knew some of the victims at St. Rita's.

If Blanco is allowed to testify, it should be either by sworn statement or a
closed-door deposition rather than in open court - and under an order that
would allow questioning about "only relevant facts which can be obtained
solely from Gov. Blanco and no other source."

Blanco, Johnny Bradberry, secretary of the Department of Transportation and
Development, and two other state officials were subpoenaed.

Foti's office contends that none of them know first-hand what happened at
St. Rita's, so they have nothing of substance to add to the trial.

Defense attorneys say that such testimony is critical to their strategy of
essentially putting the government on trial.

"At every level, the actions and inactions, and the decisions and
indecisions, of the governor, along with other state and local officials,
are an integral part of the explanation for how it was that St. Rita's came
to shelter in place rather than to evacuate on that last weekend of August
2005," Reed wrote.

Prosecutors said it would be an "immense" burden for Blanco to testify. But
Reed said she willingly testified several months ago at a hearing about a
settlement in the class-action civil suit linked to the Murphy Oil spill in
St. Bernard Parish.